Supporter journeys

Glyn Thomas

Email: glyn@glyn-thomas.co.uk
Twitter: @glynmthomas
Website: www.glynthomas.com

What we'll cover today

• What is a supporter journey?
• Why a supporter journey is so important
• 4 mistakes charities and NGOs often make
• 4 key things to do differently instead

What is a supporter journey?

The concept comes from the customer journey

In the charity and NGO sector, the customer journey is the supporter journey

There are different types of supporter journey:

Organisation-wide

Specific campaign

Welcome journey

4 key mistakes organisations make with supporter journeys

1. Not thinking about the audience properly

• People on our email list
• The general public

• People on our email list who took part in a previous campaign
• People who follow us on Facebook
• People who follow us on Twitter
• People who support x organisation
• People who live in y city
• People who have z job

Solution: Define your supporter audience very carefully

Exercise:

Think about some of the different  audiences you might have for your projects

2. Impersonal communications to supporters and put the organisation first

Lisa Sargent

Solution: Personalise your supporter communications as much as you can and put the supporter first

3. Start the journey with asks that are too complicated

Actions not to start with

• Make a regular donation
• Send a handwritten letter to your MP
• Write to your local newspaper

Solution: Start simple and go for more complex actions later

4. Planning a supporter journey for a campaign that fails to consider the whole organisation

Teams and their objectives

Fundraising: appeal to raise money

Campaigns: want people to sign a petition

Communications: more sign ups to the email list

Collaboration

Set up a petition that also allows people to sign up to the organisation's email list

Ask people to share the petition after they have signed it if they are a new supporter

If they are an existing supporter, ask them to donate after they have signed the petition

- Sign petition
- Donate
- Donate
- Read the blog post, donate
- Donate
- Donate

Solution: Make sure your supporter journey works for the whole organisation, not just your team or campaign

Think about great content that tells a story, and weave in calls to action around that

Book

Change for Good- using behavioural economics for a better world - Bernard Ross, Omar Mahmoud

Podcast

Shortcuts to Raise more Money - Dana Segal https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/post/__076